I am Groot

This is what I have heard. The bases are rotting, the buildings moldy and decrepit. That includes base housing. Many of the postings are in the boonies, where spouses don't want to live. The military moves you around every couple of years for no good reason, and that upsets spouses and kids. The discipline, in a lot of ways, is stupid, demoralizing, bullying, and intransigent. On top of that, the shortage of personnel means many people are working long hours and covering two or more positions. Shipping out in the navy is a constant hassle of covering your duties and the missing other guy's too. The more people leave the harder the remainder have to work. Without overtime or much thanks. And that just leads to more people leaving. And, of course, the equipment is rusting out, obsolete, barely functioning, or missing entirely. People see the good job environment in the country now and ask themselves why the hell they're in the military? It's not like anyone, especially the government, is showing them any thanks or respect, after all. That's' the retention problem. The recruitment problem is an ongoing mess (as in ongoing for decades) wherein some bright eyed young thing comes in and signs up, then goes home and eagerly waits their phone call to tell them when the come in and start training. .And waits... and waits... and waits... as weeks turn into months and months turn into a year or more. Sometimes their files simply get lost and they have to start over.

The problem at the US border like the problem at the EU and Canadian borders is entirely due to their own laws never having evolved to meet the current situation. In all three places treaties were signed after WW2 which bound them to take in anyone claiming asylum and give them a hearing. That was okay when there were very few people claiming asylum. That obviously is not the case any more. The problem is the legal people in all three jurisdictions have 'amended' the law so that a hearing is no longer adequate. Now people have the right to a hearing, an appeal, and then should they be unsatisfied, an appeal through the long, complex and very time-consuming bureaucracy of the regular court systems. This process can easily take five or more years. Specific to the US border issue is that they HAVE to take these people in to give them an asylum hearing by law. They could change the law but never have. They could hold them at the border until going through the hearing etc. but they don't have remotely enough detention facilities and congress refuses to authorize the money for more. They also have a court judgement that kids can't be held in facilities where adults are detained. Which has led to all manner of problems. Again, congress has neither changed the law nor provided money for detention facilities for underage migrants. Added to this is that not all the underage people who show up with adults are related to them. Though the adults claim to be in hopes it gets them in faster. There are also a lot of migrants who don't even make such claims and those tend to be returned quickly when caught. But then they turn around and come back. If caught again they are liable to detention but once again, the US detention facilities are overflowing and congress won't pay for more. Word of this has moved south where things are kind of awful, and a lot of people are headed north knowing that if they say the magic words the US has to let them in.

"Nurse Ratchet. Dougie needs his medicine again."

No. Trump was mean because Trump has always been a mean, cruel man without empathy for others. The tales of his cruelty others stretch back into his youth, where his father, giving up on him, sent him to military school in hopes it would drum some discipline into the boy. It didn't. He has always been a mean bully, to his staff, to his wives, to his suppliers. It's who he is. He feels powerful when he can hurt others and they can't hurt him back.

Well, that's the first thing you've said I agree on. Trump certainly never left anyone in doubt about his moral integrity. Nosiree.

What were these alleged accomplishments?

If there really was a deep state Trump would have had a fatal 'heart attack/stroke/fall in his first year in office. At the very least they'd have let him die of covid.

It puts the behaviour of what Great Britain and Canada did into the proper context. We mostly didn't have any institutions. Which is why we asked the churches to run schools. The number of people working for the state back then was a tiny fraction of what there is today. We didn't even have income tax back then to support many government services.

You're the one who called me on it.

Everyone makes absolutist statements about the other guy - like you just did. Does it really have to be acknowledged that you accept that not every single member of the group lives up (or down) to the standard?

Now how many nations of that time acted better than we did? How many acted way, way worse? Anyone who feels guilty over something they haven't done and wants to apologize for it to people who didn't even suffer the harm or damage is a fool.

Almost all those six million are already eligible to have dental expenses covered under welfare or various programs at the municipal or provincial level.

You are absolutely right. There is no way in hell Trump is going to allow himself to be questioned under oath. The man can't string three sentences together without lying at least twice. He can't afford to be questioned under oath.

When have they not? The federal NDP (as opposed to its western provincial branches) gave up any real semblance of a working man/labour party years ago. It's a party which largely represents union members who are upper middle class and work in the public sector and sees its primary duty as being the voice of the identity group hierarchy. Blue collar workers are... icky, and seem to have little respect or understanding of intersectionality. Blech. They don't even understand the need to eliminate their jobs on behalf of climate change or lower their wages on behalf of mass immigration. The Liberals, for better or worse, have moved almost entirely into NDP territory in an effort to push the former off the map and take their voter base. So they largely echo the same identity stuff as the NDP. The major media is mostly made up of comfortably upper middle class university educated urbanites who don't relate well to blue collar types much less rural people. I don't see anyone talking much about the working man/woman who sees their disposable income melting in the face of higher inflation but stagnant wages except Pierre Poilievre. Which likely explains his growing popularity, esp among younger people who used to be in the Liberal/NDP camps.

This topic is, I think, an indication of the degree of resentment I see growing among many people, primarily white males, towards the continuous bleating of the activist world, major media and government of all types regarding diversity and inclusion and equity. I feel this resentment myself, to some degree, though insulated by not having any real economic worries. There is only so long you can shout at someone for their imagined deficiencies before they start getting mad. I see Black people all over the Canadian media these days. Virtually every commercial has at least one black person in it. Every newscast has black people as reporters, newsreaders, etc, and there seems to be a wildly disproportionate number of stories about or interviewing of black people, despite their being a bit over 3% of the population. All of this is a result of the collective sense of self-loathing and guilt so many progressives seem to feel because they've been told they have to by their American mentors. Canadian progressives take their cue from down south. If American progressives are 'taking a knee' for black lives matter then Canadian progressives are damned well going to do the same, even in a lockdown. Witness that sanctimonious puffball Trudeau doing so last year. And of course, the flurry of diversity, equity and inclusiveness hectoring, lecturing and badgering down south has been echoed by the same thing up here. Because stuff. Question it and you're just showing your 'white fragility'. But Canada does not have America's long and bitter history of slavery and racism, nor its inner city slums. Granted, this is as much due to geography as policy, but even so, we had a miniscule number prior to confederacy and none whatsoever afterward. Canada's entire population of Black people numbered a few tens of thousands as late as the 1970s. The great majority of those here today are immigrants. It's awfully difficult to justify the hand-wringing and lecturing White Canadians have been and continue to be subjected to largely on their behalf. Canada is so racist, after all, that we let in millions and millions of black and brown people with nary a word of protest. And therein lies the basic source of resentment. Being called an innately racist society and being constantly lectured on our racist past on behalf of... immigrants is absurd and cannot fail to breed resentment, not only towards the groups hectoring them but towards minorities as well. It's difficult to logically justify hiring or promoting a black or brown immigrant over a white Canadian due to the former's 'trauma' over some imagined past as a victim of racism when neither they nor their ancestors were here to experience it. And it's difficult, if not impossible to justify continually nagging white Canadians about our racism when our lack of racism is amply demonstrated by the millions of non white people we have allowed into our country. And as the economy deteriorates that resentment is going to grow, especially with the likes of Trudeau and SIngh fanning the flames at every opportunity.

Point of order. They were not Canadians. And we do not know they even stayed in the new world after confederation. Or whether they died. Thus there seems very little if any connection between Canadians and today to the people of that era who owned slaves.

Are you perhaps self-employed?

The farming and other industries are what pay the bills for those who persist in living in the bushes where there is no work. Maybe they should do like everyone else has done and move to where the jobs are.

There were many things which doomed them. The most important of which were animals. They didn't have the right ones here. Without horses, cattle, oxen or sheep the natives were doomed to remain hunter-gatherers and basic, hand-to-mouth agrarians without the free time to develop technological and scientific specialists. Once the Europeans landed they brought the animals with them. But they also brought the diseases they themselves were infested with due to their close working relationship with animals; pigs, ducks, horses, cattle, oxen, sheep etc. The natives had developed no immunity to those diseases and died by the tens of thousands.

The problem with people highlighting our 'blemishes' is they never admit to context and they never extend their judgement to the rest of the world at the same time. They compare how Canada acted hundreds of years ago to how they believe people ought to act TODAY. But in their intense condemnation of everything related to Canada's history they ignore reality. Every country, every people, every tribe, every nation, every kingdom or empire took what they had the strength to take from those weaker than them all through history. The actions of the British here were far more humane than what natives did to victims of their conquest. The natives either killed them all outright or drove them off. They certainly didn't invite them to share in the riches of the land. The natives were doomed to be conquered and colonized because they were not capable of ever advancing to the level of a technological civilization that could withstand attack. They should be thankful it was the French who took their territory and not the Spanish or Dutch. The problem with progressives is they have all kinds of giddy ideas but mostly they don't work. Also, while they can build things they can't run them.

I haven't declared it unassailable. You did. By being unable to assail it. Canada has very bad government. America has worse.

I don't really understand how you can call something 'deranged' without the ability to dispute the truth of what was said. Which you cannot do.

I'm afraid, Ben, that we've reached the point where I feel any hope of productive (or even interesting) discussion with you is beyond your present level of maturity, intellect, and emotional limitations. You have a good life now.

If the Orange Jesus worshippers you put in place in state election offices cheat enough, you mean? They held them a few years ago when Orange Jesus was elected. What did they do for people? Gave big tax breaks to corporations and the rich, hugely increased the deficit and debt, and took away people's healthcare. And big dummies shouted Rah Rah Orange Jesus while they got poorer and poorer and the billionaires got richer and richer. It's a point of pride to big dummy Americans that they have a lot of billionaires, even while they themselves can't afford to get their teeth fixed.